KANSAS CITY, Mo. — In case anyone missed Villanova’s up and down regular season, the Wildcats needed only 40 minutes to reenact a five-month roller-coaster ride.
Trailing by as many as 20 points last night, ninth-seeded Villanova fought its way back to take a short-lived second-half lead over eighth-seeded North Carolina, but the Wildcats couldn’t overcome a barrage of 3-pointers, which propelled the Tar Heels to a 78-71 victory in the second round of the NCAA Tournament South Region at the Sprint Center.
North Carolina (25-10) will play top-seeded Kansas, with Tar Heels coach Roy Williams having earned his 700th career victory and improving to 23-0 in his team’s first game of the NCAA Tournament.
“The 700, that’s neat. It’s a lot of players at Kansas and North Carolina that have made that happen and I realize that,” said Williams, who earned his first 418 wins in 15 seasons with the Jayhawks. “But getting 25 for this team was really, really important to me.”
Facing Villanova for the sixth time in the NCAA Tournament, and the third time since 2005, North Carolina ran out to an early 32-12 lead with a 15-0 run, as the Tar Heels’ small sharpshooters opened 10-of-15 from the field.
Villanova (20-14) ended the half with an 8-0 run, trailing 37-29, and though both teams shot 12-of-24 from the field, the Tar Heels hit five 3-pointers, while the Wildcats missed all six attempts. North Carolina ended the game hitting 11-of-21 from outside.
“When we saw the matchup with Carolina, the nightmare was 3-point shooting,” Villanova coach Jay Wright said. “We don’t have great quickness on this team and that’s why we’ve struggled defending the three. You can’t get down 20 to a team like Carolina. They’re too good, they’re too smart. They’re not going to give it back to you.”
But they did. The Wildcats owned the inside, with Brooklyn’s JayVaughn Pinkston and senior center Mouphtaou Yarou combining for 37 points and 16 rebounds, and took a brief 44-42 lead with just over 14 minutes left after Pinkston pulled down a rebound and performed a sweet spin-move.
Villanova’s scoring couldn’t spread though, as four Wildcats combined for 65 points, and Ryan Arcidiacono, Darrun Hilliard and James Bell missed 16-of-20 3-point attempts.
The Tar Heels began to pull away after P.J. Hairston (23 points, 7-of-11 from the field) hit two of his five 3-pointers to take a 63-54 lead with five minutes remaining, but a 12-3 run, concluded with Pinkston’s free throws, closed the gap to 67-66 with 2:14 left.
“We came into the game lackadaisical and we paid for it,” said Hilliard, who finished with 18 points. “We know we’re better than that team. We should have played for 40 minutes. When you play lackadaisical against a team like that, they’re going to make you pay.”
It would get no closer. Down four, Pinkston stole an inbounds pass and missed a leaner, leading to a Hairston 3-point play, which gave Carolina a seven-point lead with 42 seconds left.
“I loved the mental toughness of our teams the last eight or nine minutes,” Williams said. “I though earlier in the same it was all happy an smooth and the ball was going in and then all of a sudden they started competing a little harder than we did. We had some difficult moments out there, but we’re fortunate it worked out.”